Previously: Radek's been keeping a pretty important secret (since chapter 84) from Anna. Bad news: she found out (in chapter 87).


Chapter 90. Anybody Else's Problem.

Anna didn't know whether to feel guilty or like a petty little child when she skipped out on breakfast with Radek this morning. Maybe a little of both. She was still angry, and was sure she was justified to be. He'd pretty well acted like a small child, too. Keeping these stupid secrets because he didn't know what to tell her? How to tell her?

Who cared?

Anna stared up at the ceiling for a long time, hugging her quilt until midmorning. Hunger finally pulled her from her covers and persuaded her to get dressed.

The mess hall was empty, all the warm breakfast cleared. Anna settled for cold cereal and took her time eating it. No one was waiting for her. No one was wondering where she was. Nobody cared, and nobody bothered…

The mess hall was actually pretty nice when it was empty. No endless echo of conversations. When there weren't rows of food along the wall waiting to be eaten, the only thing Anna could smell was the sea salt breeze wafting in the open doors. She'd never quite realized how beautiful it was in here.

It was beautiful here. She didn't need anybody to acknowledge her existence in order to be happy.

"There you are."

Anna dropped her spoon and spun.

Iskaan looked incredibly amused, but apologized anyway for startling her. "I looked for you at your quarters, but you weren't there." He paused, pulling out the chair next to her. "Unless I was at the wrong door, standing like an idiot outside someone else's room. That's possible."

Anna giggled. "I didn't know you were coming today."

"It was going to be a surprise," Iskaan said. "Sort of. I'm just doing a two-day trip to Ancada before coming back. I don't need to leave for another two hours. You aren't busy, are you?"

Anna shook her head. "No. Not busy. Will you be back on the mainland after that, then?"

Iskaan nodded, peering into Anna's cereal bowl like he wasn't sure what was in there was safe for consumption. "It probably won't even take two days. I might even be back tomorrow night. Will you be busy then?"

Anna doubted it, but she didn't answer. Her mind spun with possibilities of how she could escape this hollow, echoing place. Maybe it was just the empty mess hall. Maybe it was everything else.

"Can I go back to the mainland with you when you get back?" she asked.

Iskaan shrugged with a grin. "Fine with me. You know you're welcome anytime, don't you?"

Anna nodded, staying quiet.

She must have been too quiet for too long. She didn't know how to respond when Iskaan turned her chin up with his knuckle. "Hey, you okay?" he asked softly.

She nodded and turned away. Picked up her bowl. "Yeah. I've just had a bad couple of days, is all."

Iskaan followed her when she made a break for the trash bin. "I'm sorry to hear that."

He didn't ask her what was wrong with her. Anna didn't suppose he'd want to know. Who would want to know, anyway? Nobody really cared about anybody else's problems. But she wanted to believe that somebody cared. Somebody somewhere.

"Can I help you somehow?" he asked as he followed her out into the hallway.

His tone was quiet, like maybe he was unsure about what he was saying. Maybe he didn't want to say it but knew he should. Or maybe he did, but it just wasn't something people said.

Why didn't people say these things?

"No. Not really…" Anna sighed and turned to him with a small smile. "But thanks for asking. Can I help you load the Puddle Jumper or something?"

She might have asked him if he would mind her going with him to whatever planet he said he was going to… but then she'd have to track Radek down to ask his permission, and she didn't want to do that more than she wanted to go to another planet with Iskaan.

His smile was unconvinced, but he nodded anyway. "There isn't much left to do. It's not a very big mission—it's why it's only going to take about a day at most."

Anna didn't care. She stepped up and took his hand in hers.

He seemed surprised, but he didn't let go. Rather, he lifted his hand a little and looked at her fingers laced around his own. "What is this for?"

"What, your people don't hold hands?" Anna asked.

"They do…" Iskaan answered tentatively. "Really only families, though. And to guide small children."

"Oh." Anna didn't let go of his hand, even though she could only imagine what he must have interpreted this to mean. Anna didn't know how she interpreted it. Not her problem. "On my planet, friends do. Also families, but not only families." And sometimes not even families.

"I see." Iskaan walked with Anna toward the Jumper Bay. The walk was quiet and slow, giving Anna time to think. About what, she didn't know. They walked all the way to the Jumper Bay with hardly a word spoken between them. Just inside the door, though, Iskaan suddenly sighed as though annoyed or concerned. "Anna, what's wrong?" He hurried to add, "You're acting unusual."

Anna nodded slowly. "I guess I am. I'm sorry."

Iskaan paused to look directly at her. He didn't seem annoyed at all anymore. Just concerned. "I don't want an apology. I want to know if you're okay. If there's anything I can do to help."

She sighed. "A couple of days from now is… a year ago, my mother died. I wish she was here."

"I'm sorry," he offered quietly. "I don't remember my mother."

Anna pulled her hand out of his and backed up to lean on the corner of the wall. "I'm okay most days. I just don't…" She took a deep breath and turned her eyes back to him. "I just don't like to think about it. And it's hard not to think about it when I think that a year ago, today, I was in the hospital with her."

Iskaan looked down. "I know I'd be sad if I lost my father somehow. Very sad. I don't know how sad." He leaned back against the wall next to her. "Tell me about her?"

It was hard to imagine he actually wanted to know, but he was doing a fine job pretending. "It's okay."

"No, really. I never met my mother. I like hearing about other peoples'."

Anna shrugged. "Just like any other mother, I guess. She made the best dinners… um, most of the time. Only when she was making something she knew. Anytime she wanted to try anything she'd never made before, it always turned out just awful."

Iskaan smiled.

His smile made Anna think maybe she could, too. He wouldn't think any less of her, probably. "She was very smart, also. Smarter than anybody I knew. She always knew more than all of my teachers about everything. And she liked to buy me things, like clothes. It seemed like every week she'd get me some new shirt or pants."

"You must have been rich," Iskaan said.

"I don't know if we were." Anna looked around the space filled with things. She realized how lucky she was, to never want for anything. Everything she could have ever wanted was given to her before she knew to ask for it. "I guess we were. But, it doesn't really matter, you know?"

It didn't make sense. Anna knew it as soon as she said it, from the way he tilted his head and blinked.

She tried not to laugh, either at him or herself. "I don't know. When you're young, outside playing after a picnic, your mother sitting nearby just watching? You don't know anything when you're young. Things just are the way they are, whether they're good or bad."

Iskaan nodded like he understood that, at least. "When a few minutes are so good, you forget the hours that were bad."

"I guess."

Anna remembered those bad hours, too. She remembered her mother sitting her down on the couch and holding Anna's hands in hers. She told Anna that Radek wasn't coming back home, explained that she and Radek just couldn't live together anymore. They were arguing too much. They argued all the time. But Anna never had to worry because she loved Anna forever, no matter what.

Anna had too many questions to ask all of them. She wanted to know if she could see Radek again. Her mother said no, probably not anytime soon. But Radek loved her, too. Always would.

But was that true? What if Anna started arguing with Radek? What if Anna started arguing with her mother? Would Anna have to leave then, too?

Anna realized later, maybe a little too much later, that didn't make much sense. Parents didn't kick their children out for things like that. She hoped not, anyway.

Anna still spent the majority of her young life making sure to never argue. It was better to take her mother at her word that she and Radek were separating because they argued. Not because they didn't love each other. At least, if it was because of arguing, then there was something Anna could do. It wasn't some spontaneous breakdown of love… though that seemed just as possible.

"Anna?"

Maybe Anna had been thinking too much. "Yes? I mean…" She sighed, and shook her head. "I'm sorry. I have to go."

"Okay, but Anna? You know, you can come visit me. Maybe you wouldn't have to think of your mother at all if you didn't want to." Iskaan smiled a little. "Doctor Adams is coming, and I'm sure he'd bring you if you asked."

"That sounds like a good idea. I'll think about it. I'll see you when you come back?"

Iskaan gave a solid nod. "I hope so."

#

The lab that morning was unusually quiet. Or maybe it was always this way and Radek was only more aware of it right now. Everyone bent over their consoles, testing and guessing, deciding and theorizing. Now that Radek considered the possibility that his life had entered the crosshairs of some of the military members of Atlantis, he had to wonder whether he'd been placed under a microscope here in the lab, too.

Since when did he care what other people thought?

Since when did he even notice?

Rodney suddenly waltzed in, like he was on some important business. He didn't say anything for the longest time. No accusations of idiocy, no opening snide remarks.

After a moment, Radek couldn't stand it anymore. "Do you need something, Rodney?"

"Hm, um, yeah," Rodney said. "Could you give me a hand with a few of the artifacts they bought on M1S?"

Radek looked at him askance, nodding anyway. "Okay, sure." He paused to give Heyerdahl a few instructions to continue what Radek was doing.

Radek followed Rodney back through Lab 01 to the room where a bunch of technological artifacts perched on files and spilled out on tables. Recon team 12 bought a collection from a group of agrarian traders a few weeks ago. There were also bits and baubles from the piers and lower levels, and a few more found in ruins offworld. More than anything, they had the slick and sharp shards from Wraith encounters all over the galaxy.

"So." Rodney handed Radek a tablet and a thing that looked more like a rock than anything else. "Seen Doctor Weir lately?"

Radek froze for a fraction of a second. Was that what this was about? He had the brief thought to tell Rodney to, please, hold on for just a second. He had to go find Major Lorne and tell him to shoot him. But, no. Radek had nothing left in him to care what McKay, of all people, thought.

"No, not lately," he answered, thinking it was something of the truth. What was lately? He hadn't seen her today. That counted. "Why? Was she looking for me?"

"I don't know. Is she?"

Radek slapped the artifacts down on the nearest table and busied himself pulling up files from the category. "I said I hadn't seen her. How am I supposed to know?"

"Come on, Radek!"

When Radek looked up the next time, Rodney was staring at him in what might have been confusion or disappointment or something between those two lines. It was almost as entertaining as Radek imagined this moment would be.

"'Come on,' what?" Radek said, going back to the files. He wasn't necessarily one to be cagey, but when Rodney's torment was involved, Radek was willing to make exception. "Have you been listening to the water cooler gossip again, because you remember what happened the last time, yes?"

"That was completely different, and she does have a thing for me."

Radek rolled his eyes. Kusanagi respected Rodney a lot, yes, maybe too much. Still, Radek refused to believe she found him attractive in any sense. "No, she doesn't."

"Okay, you're right. She doesn't. Not anymore, anyway," Rodney allowed. "I was sorry to break her heart, but, you know, Doctor Brown has—"

"I don't want to know what Doctor Brown has," Radek interrupted, shutting his eyes to try to ignore whatever picture Rodney might have brought up. Instead, he pulled up the most recent catalog of artifacts and found the one he was about to input already there. Pictures, description, everything. He held up the device. "These are already cataloged."

"Oh?" Rodney looked genuinely surprised.

Of course, he was genuinely surprised. He never did the cataloging—how was he supposed to know what was done unless he went looking for registered artifacts?

"Good. Looks like we're done." Radek sighed, shoved the artifact back on the shelf. He was about to leave when he decided he couldn't just ignore Rodney's hurt and baffled look. "And I suppose you want to know whether that gossip is true?"

"Well…" Rodney muttered. "Everybody else I've talked to this morning seems to think it is."

"There you have it, then."

"I refuse to believe that you two have been, you know…" Rodney made a vague gesture with his hands. Radek couldn't begin to guess what it meant before Rodney went charging ahead. "No way. Not for weeks. I would have noticed."

"You wouldn't have noticed."

Rodney paused, paled, and continued, "And you, of all people? Come on."

"Sorry, Rodney."

"I don't believe it."

Radek went back to his lab. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled with time wasted and Rodney's grating tone stabbing his auditory nerve. It didn't matter what Rodney believed. It didn't matter what anybody thought. He thought that Rodney's discomfort would have well enough made up for any unpleasant consequences for the pursuit of this relationship.

He was almost right.

Rodney stood quietly in the doorway before walking away. He'd apparently run out of things to say. If Radek didn't know better, though, he'd say Rodney had been hurt. He couldn't figure why that would be, and didn't care. He had enough of his own problems to worry about to concern himself with anybody else's.


A/N: But did you see this coming?

Seriously, though, I feel really bad about how protracted this silly arc has become. We will clean up this mess soon, I swear.


Next time: I swear I wasn't looking for anything in the Jumper Bay.